Former British Soldier Accused of Killing Kenyan Female Appears in Court

A suspect has been presented in court as extradition proceedings began in the legal matter of Agnes Wanjiru, a Kenyan woman who was murdered near a UK military installation in 2012.

Robert Purkiss, 38, who is hailing from Greater Manchester, showed up in the Westminster court on Friday, and told the court he intended to contest the extradition. Reports indicate that he was taken into custody on Thursday night.

A detention order for Purkiss was authorized by a court in Nairobi in the month of September. The state attorneys informed the Kenyan judiciary that Purkiss had been facing a single count, of homicide, and that the government of Kenya would seek his extradition to face charges.

He was once employed as a army medic with the Lancaster Regiment, the infantry regiment for the north-west of England, including on deployments in Afghanistan.

Agnes Wanjiru, twenty-one, a beautician who had a young daughter, went missing after a night on the town, and her remains was found after two months in the grounds of the accommodation where she had most recently observed.

Nobody had before been taken into custody or indicted in relation to her death. The arrest of Purkiss followed a recent detective probe, which came after a exposé in 2021 by a Sunday newspaper, in which the publication contacted several active and retired troops in the military group.

The investigation has been spearheaded by Kenyan detectives, which, under a mutual defense pact, maintains prosecutorial power in the case.